Dear Departed

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘You knew her quite well,’ Atherton said, as a statement rather than a question.

  ‘Yes,’ Stalybrass said. He eyed Atherton for an instant, as if working out how much he already knew, and then said, ‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter if it comes out now. She and I were very close. We’d been having a thing for about a year.’

  ‘You were lovers?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about it. We weren’t in love or planning to live together or anything like that. It was all very light-hearted. We liked each other very much but we were just good friends, with sex added, that was all. Chattie was a great girl – a real pal, if you know what I mean. One of those rare women who can meet men on their own terms and be proper friends without dragging in all that female baggage and emotional trappings. We met when we felt like it, made love when we felt like it, lived our own lives and had no obligations to each other beyond having a lot of fun.’

  ‘Was that the way she was in general?’

  ‘Well, I can’t speak for every corner of her life, but from what she said to me it was. She liked men and she enjoyed sex but I don’t think she’d ever felt seriously about anyone. She told me that she’d never been in love, and never expected to be. She said to me more than once, “There’s no room in my life for another man.”’

  Atherton noted that, the same words she had used to Mrs Hammick. Another man? So who was the first? ‘Had she had a bad love affair and been hurt, or something?’

  ‘Not that I ever heard. She just liked to keep emotions at a distance,’ Stalybrass went on. ‘Well, it suited me, because I’ve been through a bad divorce, and it suited her, and it was nobody’s business but ours, was it?’

  ‘So she may have been seeing other men as well as you?’

  Atherton was amused to notice that he didn’t like that question. For all his vaunted independence, he didn’t want to think of Chattie in someone else’s bed. ‘She may have been,’ he said lightly. ‘I suppose I ought even to say that it was likely. She was very attractive and she liked men, so why wouldn’t she? But I would never have asked her, and if I had, she certainly wouldn’t have answered. She was quite a private person in many ways.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I’ve seen her and Marion having those girls’ heart-to-hearts they all go in for and, believe me, it was Marion doing the telling and Chattie doing the listening. She would never have given away her inmost secrets.’

  Touché, thought Atherton. So it was all round the band, then, that he had seen Marion two nights running? He had managed not to come face to face with Marion’s flatmates yet, by bedding her at his place and leaving her at her door afterwards, but evidently there were no secrets kept within the group. Or, perhaps, not within the female half of it.

  Down to business. ‘Did you have a date with her on Tuesday night?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. How did you know that?’

  ‘It was in her diary. “JS 8pm”. It seemed likely that JS was Jasper Stalybrass.’

  ‘JS could have been anyone, but in fact it was me. I’ve nothing to hide. We went to see the new Woody Allen film, and then we went back to my place, but she didn’t stay long. She said she had a lot to do the next day and wanted to get up early.’

  ‘Did she usually stay the night?’

  ‘More often than not, but not invariably. Sometimes we went back to her place instead, and then I generally stayed the night, unless I had something early the next day.’

  ‘Did she say what it was she had to do?’

  ‘No, we didn’t talk about business. But she did seem a bit preoccupied – not as forthcoming as usual.’

  ‘Was she worried about something?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say worried exactly. She just seemed to have her mind on other things. She was perfectly cheerful when she did talk, and she laughed her head off at the film. No, not worried or unhappy, just busy, I think.’

  ‘Do you know what she had been doing earlier that day?’

  ‘No. She’d been working, I presume, but she didn’t say and I didn’t ask.’

  ‘It didn’t come up in the course of conversation?’

  ‘No, we mostly talked about the band and the CD and music in general. She never did speak much about her other clients, unless they were friends of ours. And even then – well, she was discreet, I suppose. Which was quite right.’

  ‘Of course,’ Atherton said. ‘It’s just that there was an entry in her diary for that day which we haven’t been able to work out. It said, “DC 10 TFQ”. Does that mean anything to you?’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘No, I’m afraid not. I’ve no idea what that means.’

  Atherton tried another angle. ‘You said about your relationship with her, “It doesn’t matter if it comes out now.” Were you keeping it a secret?’

  ‘It wasn’t really a relationship in the sense—’

  ‘Okay, take that as read, but was it a secret you were seeing each other?’

  ‘Yes, it was – but not for any sinister reason,’ Stalybrass said, and he gave a charming, confiding smile which Atherton tried to resist, but with difficulty. ‘You see, though Chattie never took any relationship seriously, it didn’t always follow from the other side, if you get what I mean. She’d been out a couple of time with Toby – Toby Harkness, our oboe-player – and he’d fallen desperately in love with her. He just couldn’t understand that she didn’t feel the same. Poor old Toby’s a bit intense, and he had a sheltered upbringing – in Bristol, to make it worse. To him, the fact that she’d been to bed with him meant she loved him and they were going to get married. Once she found he wasn’t singing from the same hymn sheet she tried to disengage from him but it was difficult. In the normal course of events she would just have refused to see him or talk to him any more. But, of course, with Tobe she couldn’t do that, because of everything she was doing for the band. She’d be seeing him in the course of things several times a week, so she had to try to let him down gently. And part of that was not letting on to anyone that she and I were seeing each other, because it would just about have killed old Tobes, and if any of the others had known it would have got back to him. So I’d be grateful if you didn’t let on about this to anyone.’

  Atherton promised nothing. ‘Did you know she saw Toby on Tuesday evening, before she met you?’

  He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look unduly concerned. ‘No, I didn’t. Where was that?’

  ‘In the pub at the end of her road.’

  ‘The Anchor? Oh, well, I expect he was just trying to get her to go back with him, and she was telling him kindly it was no go.’

  ‘So she was still sleeping with him?’ Atherton tried. He had to wonder whether Chattie had not been a manipulative little minx.

  ‘Oh, no, it had only been a couple of times, and it was all over as far as she was concerned. But I’m not altogether sure she was right about handling him with kid gloves,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘I mean, I know Toby’s an emotional sort, and all oboe players are a bit mad anyway, but he just wasn’t capable of believing there’d been nothing in it, and a short, sharp shock might have been better for him in the long run.’ His expression changed and he said bleakly, ‘Well, he’s had that now, hasn’t he? Couldn’t be any shorter or sharper. I suppose old Tobes will be able to go to his grave believing she loved him really. Oh, God, I just can’t believe – I mean, I was making love to her on Tuesday night and just a few hours later—’ He chewed his lip, staring away from Atherton while he tried to keep control.

  Much as Atherton would have liked to resist, he felt honesty in this man, and real affection for the dear departed. Whatever he was, he didn’t think he was First Murderer.

  ‘You said, “All oboe-players are a bit mad”?’ he queried.

  ‘Well, it’s playing with a double reed, you see – causes huge pressure on the frontal lobes. They all go a bit barmy in the end.’ Stalybrass smiled and added, ‘It’s a musicians’ joke, that’s all. Well, some of them are peculiar but, the
n, to a horn-player, anyone who wants to play any other instrument seems peculiar.’

  Atherton had heard about oboists being mad from another source – well, from Sue, not to mince matters. He shied away from the thought of her. ‘How has Toby reacted to Chattie’s death?’

  ‘Well, he was devastated, like the rest of us. Maybe a bit more so, given that he thought she was the one true love of his life. And he tends to be a bit intense anyway, does Tobe. Artistic temperament. He was just sunk in depression at the studio this morning – hardly said a word to anyone.’

  ‘Is he the jealous kind?’ Atherton asked. ‘Did you keep your affair with Chattie secret from him not to hurt his feelings, or from fear of what he might do?’

  ‘Fear of what he might do?’ Stalybrass looked puzzled.

  ‘You see, we aren’t making this public at the moment, but we don’t think it was the Park Killer who did it. We think it was someone who knew her.’

  Now Stalybrass looked alarmed. ‘Oh, good Lord, you aren’t thinking Toby did it? He would never do anything like that. Not old Tobes. He’s a bit emotional and, as I said, he’s had a rather sheltered upbringing, so he didn’t understand Chattie the way we would.’

  Atherton liked the touch of the little slipped-in ‘we’ – men of the world like you and me, he meant.

  ‘But he would never hurt a fly. Wouldn’t have the guts, apart from anything else. I mean, if you knew the man – well, it’s laughable to think of him stabbing anyone. He’s really a bit of a dork. And he’s soft – even lets wasps out of the window rather than killing them. He’s just not capable of murder.’

  He stopped talking and looked pleadingly at Atherton. Atherton said nothing for a moment. In the eyes opposite he had seen a flash of knowledge, the sudden realisation that the unthinkable was possible. A bit emotional’? Toby had been ‘desperately in love’ and now the woman he wanted would not see him. Atherton thought of the kiss on the cheek and the hair-ruffling at the last interview. A man in that situation might decide that if he couldn’t have her, no-one else should. A man rejected and humiliated and not taken seriously might find that a mixture of anger in with his grief was enough to stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood.

  After a moment, Stalybrass said thoughtfully, ‘Killed by someone who knew her, eh?’

  Atherton nodded. ‘So, you see, we need to find out all we can about her and her life.’

  Stalybrass seemed relieved by this, as though it were letting Toby off the hook. ‘Well, I’ll tell you everything I know. I was pretty close to her.’

  ‘Let me get you another drink,’ said Atherton.

  It was late by the time Slider got back to the office, but an enquiry at the desk told him that Porson was still on the premises. O’Flaherty, the uniformed sergeant who passed on the news, did it with a sad shake of the head. ‘Got no home to go to,’ he said. ‘Or, at least, not one he wants to be in, wit’ the missus gone. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was headin’ for a crack-up.’

  Slider climbed up to the eyrie, remembering, unwelcomely, a previous boss, Det. Sup. Barrington, who had killed himself shortly after Slider had refused an invitation to dinner with him. In the fridge there had been the dinner for two he would have cooked, and nothing else. The loneliness of Barrington’s life as revealed had haunted Slider – not that the Syrup was strictly comparable, for Barrington had had no family and was, in any case, seriously bonkers; but if Porson had asked Slider back, he probably would have gone.

  Fortunately there was no chance of that. Porson was reading and taking notes at his desk when Slider tapped politely on the open door, and he looked up with work- and insomnia-reddened eyes, keeping his finger on his place to indicate he was busy and this should be kept short. Slider dredged up his précis lessons from school and gave Porson a short version of what they had learned from Jassy Whitelaw.

  ‘So you want to alert the Manchester police and get them to go and give this O’Brien a tug, see if Barnes is there?’

  ‘We’ve got the phone number. We can get the address from that. And we’ve got a photograph of Barnes from his flat we can send them.’

  Porson considered. ‘But you don’t know that that’s where he’s gone. It was only because the girlfriend said that was where he was on Tuesday and Wednesday.’ Give the old boy credit, he could fillet a story at the first telling. ‘You don’t even know that’s where he was on Wednesday, either,’ Porson continued. ‘It’s only what he told her. I don’t suppose their relationship was based on trust and veracitude.’

  ‘It didn’t seem that way,’ Slider agreed.

  ‘In fact, he could be anywhere in the country. Or out of it.’

  ‘Yes, sir. But the only lead we’ve got is this friend in Manchester, and I’d like to get hold of Darren Barnes before the trail gets cold.’

  ‘I don’t doubt you would, but when it comes down to it we’ve no evidence that Barnes had anything to do with the murder.’

  ‘No, sir, but we’ve got the cocaine against him, and it’s a large amount.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Porson acknowledged. ‘On that basis you can ask Manchester nicely in the morning and they’ll do it when they’ve got a minute. But you can’t go getting them out of bed and telling them to drop everything. Nor,’ he anticipated Slider’s next appeal, ‘can you flash Barnes’s picture round the country with a request to apprehend if seen. I’m sorry, Slider, but until you get a bit more to link him to the murder, it’s softly softly. Check with his known associates and family, if any, ask Brixton for help, but you can’t go demanding favours of other forces without a bit more to go on.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  Porson raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s late,’ he said. ‘Get off home to your woman, laddie. Leave burning the oil at both ends to the likes of me, without one.’

  Slider took himself away before he did the unforgivable and offered sympathy. He went back down to his own room to collect his mac (was it really only this morning that he stood outside Stella Smart’s door in the rain?) and rang Joanna’s mobile. She answered him at once, to the background sound of a car’s engine and radio.

  ‘I’m on my way home,’ she said defensively. ‘We didn’t even stop for a drink.’

  ‘I was just going to say that to you. Have you eaten?’

  ‘Before the last session. What about you?’

  ‘Some time last year, I think,’ he said. ‘I’ll stop at that all-night deli in Turnham Green and pick up something.’

  ‘Get enough for two,’ she said. ‘I’ll join you in a spot of supper. I’m hungry again.’

  ‘You’re always hungry.’

  ‘This is where we came in,’ Joanna said. ‘See you soon.’

  He had only just got down to his car when she phoned him back.

  ‘I’ve just had Jim call me,’ she said. ‘He said he didn’t want to call you in case you were still with a witness.’

  ‘You sound as though you didn’t believe him.’

  ‘He sounded weasely. He sort of invited himself to supper.’

  ‘How did that happen? I thought you hated him.’

  ‘No, I don’t hate him. I’m very sad about him and Sue. Besides, I can’t kick his behind unless we’re face to face, can I?’

  ‘Perhaps not even then.’

  ‘You know what I mean. Anyway, he said he had something to tell you and he sounded excited, and I was about to say can’t it wait for the morning when he asked if we’d had supper and I – sort of – found myself saying come and join us.’

  Slider sighed. ‘I can’t take these late nights like you youngsters. I need my sleep.’

  ‘Better get used to going without,’ she warned.

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ he shuddered. ‘So, I’m getting enough supper for three now, am I?’

  ‘Yes, but Jim said he’d bring wine.’

  ‘Small mercies, I suppose,’ said Slider.

  It was an odd sensation to have the door of Joanna’s flat opened to him by Atherton. ‘I’ve
just got here,’ he said. ‘Joanna’s getting the plates and glasses out. Is that the nosh?’

  He held out his hand for the paper sack in which the deli, aiming for an American look, had taken to packing its wares. In the background there was a clashing sound from the kitchen. Slider handed over the bag and said, ‘What was so important it couldn’t wait for tomorrow, anyway?’

  Atherton raised an eyebrow. Am I unwelcome? I didn’t think I needed an excuse to have supper with my oldest friend.’

  ‘Oldest is how I feel,’ Slider said, but he left the question unanswered. ‘Can you two manage between you? I want to wash my hands and face and take my tie off.’

  When Slider joined them in the sitting room, they were chatting in what seemed a perfectly friendly way, so he assumed that whatever bones Joanna had had to pick with Atherton, she had buried them for the time being. The food had been laid out on the gate-leg table. There was French bread, two kinds of pâté, a thoroughly degenerate piece of Brie that really ought to have been wearing a corset, a large bunch of red grapes, and three slices of the deli’s own cheesecake. Atherton’s hand was visible in the fact that the lettuce, green pepper and vine tomatoes he had bought had been assembled in one dish as a salad, with dressing: Joanna would have dumped them on the table separate and undressed for picking at. And the wine Atherton had brought was two bottles of beaujolais – Regnié, one Slider didn’t know.

  ‘So, what was the news you were so excited about?’ Slider asked, as they began. The French bread had been warmed, he discovered – Atherton again.

  ‘Did you tell him I was excited?’ Atherton asked.